


Their Dreamy Way to Weeping Moonlight

by song_of_orpheus



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (not named as aromantic because it's the 80s but Mabeuf is Definitely Aromantic), 80s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cuddling, Fairy Tales, It's more modern than the book at least, Lots of flowers, M/M, Mild Injury, Platonic Love, Romantic love, aromantic stress, gratuitous poeticism, it's all good though, no description of pain, several mentions of blood though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_orpheus/pseuds/song_of_orpheus
Summary: It's 1986, romance is confusing, flowers are very pretty, and queer people are fighting for their rights. Time for some cuddles.





	Their Dreamy Way to Weeping Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The Flowers by Stéphane Mallarmé, because I adore his poetry and I hope Mabeuf would, too (also, these lads need All of the nature references. It is The Law). The original is French, and it's translated by E. H. and A. M. Blackmore in my version, so comes out a little differently depending on your translation. You can find this version at:  
> https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KqYVDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=you+made+the+sobbing+white+of+lilies+too&source=bl&ots=aG7p85e8sg&sig=9Yeq6FvS-z27N1lzxeVQgB1XNcY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvtNzP2LXdAhWMJcAKHQQdCXkQ6AEwD3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=you%20made%20the%20sobbing%20white%20of%20lilies%20too&f=false
> 
> I'm honestly not sure how old Mabeuf is supposed to be by the time he dies (I remember he's at least sixty) so forgive me if the timing's weird. They're both in their thirties here (so would be in their sixties in the present day). In my defence, Hugo can't count either.
> 
> When Mabeuf starts thinking about a fairytale about a rose, it's the Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde.

It’s September in 1986, and Mabeuf is sitting on the balcony of his shared flat at twilight. All around, Paris chatters and thrums, smoking with all its millions of souls kept together. Some are alive, and some are not. Mabeuf, keeper of stories of this ragged neighbourhood, sees the ghosts gasp by blue-fingered. He does not always see the living.

 

“My friend,” exclaims a voice from the balcony doors, “what draws you out here so late. It’s a cold city this time of year.”

 

“I was looking at your carnations, Georges,” Mabeuf says, “I’m looking into the eyes of the ladybird at the stem here.” As he gestures daffodil-gentle, the creature flies away like an ember on the evening wind. Laughter whistles through his teeth as he hums the nursery rhyme, then stops. It’s a tragic song, and now is not the time for tragedies. Instead, he raises his palms towards the sky, where they reflect the same dark ochre as the rays slipping over the skyline.

 

Georges Pontmercy winds himself around his love the way an oak tree climbs a river bank, hair swinging out across Mabeuf’s chest vine-thick and wine-sweet. Then, over the course of three heartbeats which he pulls out for as long as possible, he presses a blue lipstick-stain kiss to Mabeuf’s neck, where the hair turns into short thick swirls.

 

Thy stay carved around each other for the time it takes for the sun to fade from view. The light pooled in Mabeuf’s hands sinks into his skin, and they retreat inside.

 

Their apartment is small and scarcely lit. Paperbacks lie frozen in waterfalls over every surface, naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling, plants drifting into existence from all corners and crevices. The furniture is all cheap and ancient and theirs. Georges takes Mabeuf’s wrist firmly, and lies down along the sofa unabashed, pulling Mabeuf on top of him, and their breath swirls into the thick scent of the lemon trees.

 

“I’ve missed you, you know,” he says, curling their legs together. His eyes are pale as moonlight and wavering, and the freckles beneath them pinch together as he grins, wildly and wilder.

 

The black cloud of hair hanging above Mabeuf’s ears is soft to his touch, and he leans up to kiss him once upon the nose and right eyelid each. Their heartbeats are so close together, neither man is sure which is which. Mabeuf feels part of his soul in Georges, and his onyx eyes reflect moonlight.

 

“You’re the one who left,” he whispers, tucking his feet between Georges’ legs and sitting up. “You left me as Penelope, with only the fruit and the flowers.” There’s no agner in his voice – Mabeuf is not made for anger; even when others despise him, he mutters a prayer on his rosary and returns to his fairy-tales. Only at their protests will he show any kind of fury, honey-lipped as he usually is. That is where he opens up his ribcage, fire-breathed and trans and queer and all the stronger for it.

 

“My dear,” Georges says, face made of clay, “I know-” Short breaths flutter in his lungs, behind his teeth. “I know you don’t love me.

 

Mabeuf’s softness turns cold. He closes his eyes slowly, so wounded and aching that Georges can almost see them bleeding. “What do you mean?” A soft voice, ever softer still. Sometimes Georges thinks Mabeuf could be a ghost himself. The lightbulbs swing gold upon his cheeks.

 

“I mean you’re not in love with me,” Georges says, and thorns rattle his insides. “You don’t love me the way I love you.”

 

Spluttering quietly, Mabeuf sits back at the other end of the sofa, cupping his eyelids around his eyes as he tries not to see. Georges, the fire-breather, Georges who kisses him so fiercely in the kitchen at midnight, Georges who loves him in a way he cannot return.

 

Breath simmers in his throat before Mabeuf can speak again. “I’m sorry,” he calls through silence, voice curdling. He repeats the words over and over, and they splinter on his tongue until they’re unrecognisable. He does not weep, though part of him dreams that he does. Part of him always dreams that he feels more than he does, feels the way he should. Georges stays away, chasms apart for a few moments as he gazes at him, then takes both of Mabeuf’s hands in his own.

 

“You still love me, mon cher.” A laugh, low and gutteral like it’s caught on flint. “That’s enough.”

 

The flowers on the balcony turn green, then blue. Mabeuf opens his eyes – choked redness – and they seek refuge in Georges. “I do,” he whispers, “more than I could tell. Bones soften. Eyes turn strong as the night-time itself. “Perhaps I can try, though.”

 

Georges laughs hotly, and creeps closer to pat Mabeuf’s cheekbone. “You don’t have to, old friend. Your plants tell me well enough.”

 

There’s something warmer twisted into Mabeuf’s smile. Slowly, staring up at Georges, he kisses the other man’s clasped hands, then shifts himself out of his grasp to lean back over the armrest. The light melts on his skin as he reaches up towards the bulb where it hangs, as if branded in place. The glass almost steams at his touch.

 

Georges watches him with steel-sharp eyes, the eyes of a lion, so daring and darling. His stare would almost be unnerving if Mabeuf did not know the kindness beneath it. Lion and lamb, he thinks.

 

“You know I’d write constellations into existence for you,” he says, and the lightbulb simmers against his fingertips. “I’d chase down the Snow Queen, seize the firebird, replant every flower I ever knew.”

 

“I know,” Georges replies. There’s a flicker of sunlight behind his eyes. Leaning away, he takes the cold mug of coffee from the floor beside him and raises it to his lips. His fingernails whiten.

 

“There’s a story, full of flowers and flowers and flowers,” Mabeuf continues, half dreaming, as the light grows brighter beneath his fingers. “I’d love to tell it to you some day.”

 

“Why not now?”

 

Mabeuf’s knuckles pale and the bulb burns brighter and brighter, his breath stilling. Empty voice. Jaw turned stone. Fire caught on the fingertips. “You’re leaving me, Georges.”

 

The bulb explodes in his palm.

 

Georges swears loudly and grabs Mabeuf’s hand to brush the glass away, face spliting into lightning. The books – all their precious books, collected from second-hand shops across the continent – screech louder as shards feather their naked covers. As they fall, the books and the fragments, they catch the darkness and bloom into incandescence. The air is smeared with colour. Mabeuf’s fingers bleed.

 

“What the _fuck_ was that? Our electrics are so shitty, the landlord better-” Georges rambles on, sharply picking the pieces of glass out of Mabeuf’s hand until he flinches away from him, staining his blouse with red as he clutches himself to his chest.

 

“You’re going to leave me,” he challenges, voice level and almost hypnotising. He’s not someone to be lied to, even by those who loathe him, even by those who love him. There’s a frown curled at his eyebrows. “I forgive you for it.”

 

The words become the truth as he says them, as they always do. Mabeuf is a good man. He is a gentle man. He is a man. All things he conjures into existence.

 

Georges slows and feels his heartbeats stretch through his chest, severed from Mabeuf’s. For a few moments, everything there is becomes his hands and Mabeuf’s and the blooming shards of the lightbulb.

 

“It’s not because-” he says, and shudders with breath before he continues, “-it’s not because you’re like that. Not because you’re not in love with me.

 

Mabeuf doesn’t speak. His cheeks are dark roses, flushing themselves soft-tender-hurt. There’s a fairytale about that, too, impossibly sad, written by a man a little like himself.

 

“I need to move, to travel, to make something of all this _anger,_ mon cher,” Georges says the moment after. “We’re in our thirties, and I want to make things so much better for people like me. Like you, especially.”

 

Mabeuf stills Georges’ hands. There’s little glass left now, and the bleeding has slowed to an echo. Sourness threatens to steal into his heart, but he forces it away and smiles in the dreamlike way he does.

 

“I love you, and you know that, dear friend. I’m not leaving you completely, and I’ll always return. I just need to fight for something right now.” Pause. Fury marbled with tenderness. People don’t treat you as a man around here. They don’t treat either of us as human. I need to fucking change that, Mabeuf.”  
  
There: warmth flushed on his cheek, the scent of overripe peaches at his throat, apricots bursting to life inside him. Mabeuf draws away, leaving his kiss soft on Georges’ cheek.

 

“It’s okay. We’ll still see each other, Georges.” He smiles, and the air opens out and out with it. “I’ll tell you all those fairy-tales. There’ll be so many flowers here when you return.”

 

“I know,” Georges says, breath cutting into his words. “I know.”

 

Outside, the flowers branch out into constellations of their own. The not-lovers stay there, embracing, for an eternity, stitching each other together with love as best they can. They hope it will be enough, in the end. Whether that’s true or not, in the glow of the fruit and the flowers and the dusk, it is.


End file.
